I’ve learned in retirement that home improvement doesn’t always have to involve plaster dust, power tools rented from the hardware store, and a pallet of materials on your driveway. While such might be needed to elicit a grunt of approval from Tim Allen (1), your home is awaiting gentler ways to make it better. For sure, there’sContinue reading “home improvement”
Author Archives: rike52
quaternary
Hello to my dozens of readers and anyone else looking in. The term quaternary refers to the fourth order in a series. As a lifelong striving academic, I’m well aware of the quaternary milestones of graduation from high school, college, and medical school. The rhythm gets fuzzy after that: residencies – at least for internal medicine –Continue reading “quaternary”
hooked!
They entered our house to help us hang stuff. 120 pictures, posters, and objects later (and that’s just the main floor), I think it’s been a job well done. But, like a restless army after a war, some have hung around to see how else they might be of help. A lot, as it turns out. Turning vertical spaceContinue reading “hooked!”
makin’ t-shirts
Ya never know what hobbies might rise to bite ya in retirement. All that brain power that used to go to the job now is free to take on God-knows-what. I never thought I’d pick up an iron again. Heck, all my white shirts were perm press, so I didn’t even need it for that. But add in anContinue reading “makin’ t-shirts”
natty!
Sing a rousing chorus!(1) You don’t have to play to feel that way! (2) The online home for the best Michigan sports coverage – Mgoblog.com – posts two Muppet videos after any very key Michigan victory: the troupe doing two songs that have been staples of the Michigan Marching Band repertoire since before the first post-war NationalContinue reading “natty!”
turkey trio
Happy New Year! This is my 400th blogpost, a habit I kicked off 10 days short of 4 years ago. I think I’m getting my money’s worth from WordPress. Today’s post, as befits my recent trend, it’s about food. Christmas dinner, to be exact. But you don’t need to wait till a holiday to make this. It’ll make any day aContinue reading “turkey trio”
halve hygge
Hygge was fading on Harbal as the evening progressed. The fire had drawn closed as Kathy and I absorbed into our screens had failed to feed the place. Faced with our next big event of the evening, “Sashay’s Shimmy Shimmy Ko-Ko Bop” show on WCBN (1), we struggled to restore the ambience. We’d found that our homemade firestarters wereContinue reading “halve hygge”
A coffee for ya, ma’am?
“Keep me up and f**k me up”, such was the request from the unnamed supermodel who walked in to celebrity bartender Dick Bradsell at Fred’s Club in Soho London sometime in 1983 (1). A simple concoction, initially called The Vodka Espresso then the Pharmaceutical Stimulant, it caught on like wildfire with revelers who wanted to keep theContinue reading “A coffee for ya, ma’am?”
geography lesson
On the back of his Christmas card to me, my ‘burg buddy Jim wrote “P.S. Learn to spell Harbaugh (It ain’t Harbal)”. I figured he needed a little lesson, and wrote him thusly: “From your admonition on the back of the envelope, I knew I had to set you straight. Bear with me here. Our littleContinue reading “geography lesson”
party on!
Andy Williams was right. “It’s the most wonderful time of the year” (1). While The Day isn’t till Monday. I’m sure most of us have been celebrating for a while already. Trees and lights start to go up around Thanksgiving, and Christmas music, and of course the ads, have been peppering the airwaves since before that. But it’s really startingContinue reading “party on!”
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